Blog Post

Help us establish the “Centre for Student Innovation” at UW

This entry was posted by Jesse Rodgers on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

In every faculty and every academic program, students like you are working on great ideas that could become more than just a course project or a hobby – they could become exciting new organizations, new businesses or new technologies.  With VeloCity, we’re limited to helping the 70 students a term who live in the residence. But imagine the possibilities if we were able to give the entire student community the support and guidance needed to make their ideas a reality.  That’s why we want to establish the Centre for Student Innovation (CSI) – a place dedicated exclusively to student innovators and entrepreneurs to work and interact with each other and with professional mentors, advisors and entrepreneurs.

I’m helping to develop a proposal that would involve transforming some existing underutilized space on campus into CSI. (Note: the proposal will not include any increase in student fees to fund CSI.)

I need your help to create the strongest proposal possible. If you like the concept, please take 5 minutes and send an email to velocity@uwaterloo.ca by December 11th with:

  • your name, program and year of study
  • why you think CSI is needed/why you think it is a good idea

We will use your email as part of our proposal (due by the end of this term) – the more supportive emails we can get, the stronger our proposal will be. Please feel free to pass this email along to others.

Thanks very much for your help!

Sean Van Koughnett
Director, VeloCity

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  • http://www.se2010.com/?p=214 SE 2010 » Help establish the “Centre for Student Innovation” at UW

    [...] Send an email of support to VeloCity (by Dec 11)   [...]

  • Ryan

    Could you provide more information about what you are planning. I support efforts to increase the efficacy of student innovators, but what do you think will be the best ways to achieve that?

  • http://whoyoucallingajesse.com Jesse Rodgers

    Initially we are looking to set up an office where folks like the Entrepreneurs in Residence at Communitech and other folks can have office hours on campus along with a bit of space for students to work on startups. We can feature local startups as well and provide a bit more information. The idea is a sort of ‘community office’ where local entrepreneurs can be introduced to the students. The Accelerator Centre just doesn’t seem to achieve that with students as it is just too far off campus to just drop in and ask a few questions.

  • Ryan

    Thanks. I sent in an e-mail of support.

  • Nick Guenther

    Why is it taken as axiomatic that innovation needs to be entrepreneurial? I know lots of people who’d be all over something that would encourage exciting new innovative thinking, but for whom having to make a buck off it would sour the appeal.

    I see that you mention “new organizations” and “new technologies” but realistically, your plan is to encourage tech startups–one more way to suck money from the rest of us students into a lot of bad ideas that go nowhere in hopes of a ideas making lots of money that can be siphoned for the institution.

  • http://whoyoucallingajesse.com Jesse Rodgers

    Nick, I think you are making a lot of assumptions about U of Waterloo and VeloCity that aren’t true. All entrepreneurship — I would almost prefer if they were all non-profit and focused on the real hard problems — is welcome at VeloCity. We don’t suck money out of students. No special fees go to us, no central money, and it doesn’t cost more to live at VeloCity then it does for residence in general.

    For myself, VeloCity is a way to support and promote doing your own thing. If we could attract more students into social entrepreneurship I would get very excited. That space needs a lot of support right now (there is a lot of support available) and I think the most innovative and disruptive ideas will come from that area. But even in that area of entrepreneurship you need to get through a heck of a lot of bad ideas before you actually know what the good ones are. The earlier you start down that path in life the easier/faster it is to learn. VeloCity offers a way for students to try something with a load of support from the local entrepreneurial community there to help.

  • Nick Guenther

    About VeloCity perhaps I was too harsh, but this “Centre for Student Innovation” would be supported by campus resources. UW has a long track record of being focused on industry, though. I’m just (probably fruitlessly) hoping that any “Centre for Innovation” is actually a centre for innovation, instead of a facetious hub of snake-oil and resume-packing.

    I would love if non-profits could get started and supported at UW, but this forgive me if I’m suspicious. This is not how VeloCity has been selling itself. Your posters are all clean-cut tahoma-bold slick; they reek of money. Even how you use that buzzword (instead of saying “non-profit” like everyone else) gives that impression.

    Thanks for taking the time to answer me, though.

  • http://whoyoucallingajesse.com Jesse Rodgers

    Non-profits is a bit limiting of a title. You can have companies that are driven by the need to do good things instead of the dollar but not limit them to not generate profits for future growth or even fair compensation for what they have achieved (not outrageous bonuses or reward for silly risks). I agree that the “social” term makes it a bit more MBA speak but I think it means something better than simply non-profit.

    Our posters are professionally done instead of clip art (helps that the Director of Graphics is the Director of VeloCity). If that “wreaks money” then so be it but even non-profits should present themselves with a little polish once in a while in my mind.

    I am sure you aren’t the only one thinking what you do and thanks for speaking up. It helps shape our vision and message.

  • http://wattf.com/wp/ Jim MurphY

    Sounds like a great way to expand the VeliCity program to me! I’m a big fan of trying lots of things simultaneously. Its more that just seeing what works and what doesn’t. There is no single “right” answer so have options and alternatives is a great thing.

    I’m also looking forward to seeing VeloCity integrate into the wider world beyond the University.

    @Nick: I would widen your defn of “Entreprenurial” – profits are a result of one kind of enterprise. To me its more about creating in the face of extreme uncertainty. The topic, style and approach is up to you. What could be cooler!